The Brazilian government National Trade Council, Camex, approved the contents of a proposed trade liberalization offer to be made by Brazil involving negotiations for a wide ranging cooperation and trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union.
The powerful manufacturers lobby, Sao Paulo’s Industry Federation, Fiesp believes a free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union is very much needed so that Latam’s largest economy climbs out from the “commercial isolation” in which it currently stands.
The lack of ‘tuning’ in trade affairs is not the only motive stalling the decade long Mercosur/European Union trade and cooperation discussions according to EU ambassador in Montevideo, Juan Fernandez Trigo who also included what he described as the ‘new historic reality’.
Argentina’s Hector Timerman and Brazil’s new Foreign minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado discussed a long agenda of common interest issues during a work meeting held in Buenos Aires, which included Mercosur, trade discussions with Europe, Unasur, Haiti and US cyber-spying in the region among other issues.
The government of President Cristina Fernandez told the business community on Monday that Argentina has an interest in a ‘balanced’ negotiation between Mercosur and the European Union to reach a political, association and trade agreement. However the timetable approach of Argentina does not seem to fit with the rest of Mercosur, mainly Brazil.
Brazil and Uruguay want to speed a trade agreement with the European Union but without abandoning Mercosur, and making it clear that they are willing to advance at “a different speed” than the rest of the group’s members, revealed a reliable source from the government of President Jose Mujica in Montevideo.
The 28-country European Union underscored the potential benefits of a free trade agreement with Mercosur and revealed that so far no country member of the group has requested to a bilateral negotiation.
Brazil, Latin America‘s biggest economy, is planning to try to negotiate a separate trade deal with the European Union, Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said in remarks published Monday.
Mercosur has become characterized for “bad leadership and worse presidents” of the countries that make up the block, since there is no incentive for the regional organization and it has become “an ideological battle political field”, said Cesario Ramalho da Silva, president of the Brazilian Rural Society.
Brazil wants to change the way Mercosur negotiates trade agreements with the European Union, EU, so as to definitively advance with the ongoing discussions that were started in 1995, but still have to see concrete results, according to Brazilian official trade and diplomatic sources.